Lessons Jimmy taught us | Opinion

Yes, I am a pirate, two hundred years too late. The cannons don’t thunder, there’s nothin’ to plunder I’m an over-forty victim of fate. Arriving too late, arriving too late.

Perhaps best known for his Parrothead drinkfest songs, like Margaritaville and It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere, true Jimmy Buffett fans appreciate A Pirate Looks at Forty for its honest reflections on life. After 40 years of drug smuggling, this modern-day pirate realizes his chosen vocation was long gone by the time he was born as he ponders his future.

Turning the calendar page to a new year, we can relate to this pirate as we resolve to change bad habits and reinvent ourselves. However, rerouting our global positioning systems often requires examining our errant misadventures.

I recently thumbed through our album of Christmas cards over the years, and it struck me how these missives so succinctly reflect our family’s personal long and winding road. It begins on a straight, happy highway, but later deviates with detours and dead ends. Early cards feature pictures of our kids under the Christmas tree and on vacation. They segue to covers created from their art, then to present-day poetic recaps of the year. Sometimes humorous, sometimes heartbreaking, but most notable is the pivot from Page perfection to raw reality.

In 2002, my oldest son cooperatively and proudly contributed his drawings for the covers. When his enthusiasm dwindled, I used my well-honed talent for coercion on all three of my children to produce collaborative art. Actually, this cringe-worthy excerpt from 2007 paints my technique as more draconian than coerced.

“Now Pete, now Patrick, now Nori, you know,

That the artwork you promised is coming painfully slow.

Until you get busy, no food I will cook.

Your clothes will lie filthy, your car keys I took.”

Ouch. No wonder they called me The Dragon.

When the manipulation method no longer worked, I substituted my poems for their art. As the following examples allude to, fissures in the Perfect House of Page begin to appear within these poems.